


so may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten

by calicomoon



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Leia Organa is a GREAT MOM, Past Leia Organa/Han Solo, Rey has a crisis of confidence, Reylo Baby, Takodana, in a world where Ben Solo defected from the FO, my take on the
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 02:54:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13941051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calicomoon/pseuds/calicomoon
Summary: “You’re right to be afraid of her,” murmurs Leia. “It’s hell, loving Ben.”





	so may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten

_mother, remember the blink of an eye when i breathed through your body?_

-iron and wine, “upward over the mountain”

_(“I felt him in me the whole time. Even before he was big enough to start making himself known. There was such a push and pull to him, already so full of conflict. Sometimes I thought he was taking it out on me. Stars, the way he used to kick.”_ )

*

It’s mid-morning, and Rey is up before Ben, for once, so she takes the opportunity to spend some time with Finn. She tinkers with a speeder and he watches, occasionally handing her tools. Out beyond her open-air workshop is Takodana’s vast jungle, lush and green, with enormous, brightly colored flowers sprinkled across the ground. Rose had planted them, determined that Rey and Ben should have a garden. Rey had reluctantly cleared the space for her, the best contribution she could make at first, and when she looks at those flowers, she’s always glad that she did. Even though Rey is terrible with plants, she’s grateful for Rose’s gift and cares for them as best she can, and they’ve blossomed beyond her wildest dreams.

They’re far nicer to look at than her current project, which lies sadly on its side, as if it knows how rusty and hopeless it is. “Where did you even find this thing?” Finn asks, considering the pile of junk before them.

“Someone left it. Way out there. You’d think it was a feral Akk dog, the way I had to fight Ben to let me bring it home.” Rey shrugs, removing a broken piece and moving it to her work bench, which is surprisingly tidy; Ben must have found his way here sometime when she wasn’t looking and organized it, more for himself than for her.

( _“Once, when he was about six, he looked me straight in the face and said, ‘Mother, you are insufferable,’ and, after I wondered where he learned_ that _word, I asked him why. He said, ‘Because you married Father a long time ago and you still keep acting surprised when he tracks dirt into the house.’ He was so mad when I laughed.”_ )

Finn frowns at the old, ugly speeder, apparently inclined to agree with Ben.

“Once I’m done with it, it’ll be beautiful,” she assures him.

He laughs then. “I don’t doubt that.” Finn looks out at the vine-draped jungle, at the narrow sliver of water he can see through the trees. He squints, as if searching for someone. Or someones.

“What do you think they’re doing out there?” Rey asks.

“Adventuring,” he replies without missing a beat.

“You didn’t want to go along?”

He shakes his head. “I never really wanted adventure in the first place. All I wanted was some peace and quiet. Goodness knows I’m not going to go looking for it for _fun_.”

Rey giggles, punching his arm lightly. Before she can begin to torment him, however, her world slows to a stop. There, just below her navel, a breath of life.

She sways.

"Rey?" Finn is already hurrying to her side, gripping her shoulder tightly.

Her head is spinning. She holds fast to Finn’s upper arms for support until she can steady herself. Again and again, the life force of the little someone in Rey breathes. She wants to cradle her. She wants to claw her out of her body. And she needs, she needs…

" _I need Ben_ ," she croaks, just as Ben all but flies into the workshop, still in his rumpled sleeping clothes and so focused on Rey that he crashes directly into her tool cabinet and tumbles to the ground.

" ‘m fine," he grunts before she or Finn can react. He manages to scramble halfway to his feet before reaching Rey, Finn only barely getting out of his way in time, and then Ben is falling to his knees, gazing intently at her midriff. A bruise is beginning to bloom on his forehead. Rey wants to laugh but she can barely breathe. Ben's hand hovers before her, not daring to touch.

"You feel her, too," Rey says dumbly.

He gives Rey a stiff nod. It should thrill her, but all it does is confirm to Rey that what is happening is real, and she doesn't yet know how she feels about it. But Ben does; Ben finally tears his eyes away from her middle and meets her gaze, his eyes full of wonder, terror, a love that burns. He loves her with such ferocity. The one touch of Kylo Ren that lingers on.

"Um."

Rey and Ben both twist toward Finn, movements sharp as those of frightened birds. Finn smoothes out his clothes a couple of times, then gestures at them awkwardly before letting his hands fall back to his sides. Finally, he says, "Are, uh, congratulations in order?"

*

Apparently, they are. When Rose finds out, she abandons Finn’s side in a heartbeat and throwing her arms around Rey. “Oh stars, Rey, that’s amazing! How far along are you?”

“Um. Ten hours?”

Shocked, Rose takes a step back, still gripping Rey’s shoulders. “Ten hours? How could you possibly…” Then Rose laughs, smacks her own forehead and gestures wildly all around them. “Duh! Force stuff. Sorry. That was a silly question. Sorry. I’m so excited.”

Rey can see that in the sparkle in Rose’s eyes, the flush of her cheeks. She’s grateful that someone feels unabashedly thrilled, and ashamed it isn’t her who feels that way. “Thank you.”

Over Rose’s shoulder, Rey sees Finn and Poe looking at her with twin expressions of concern. “Does the General know?” Poe asks.

At this, Rey is finally able to crack a smile. “I’m not sure. She may have felt it. Ben’s telling her either way.”

Rey sees all of their expressions turn in an instant: Rose’s to barely-concealed mirth, Finn’s to a sheepish second-hand embarrassment, and Poe’s to a quickly concealed smug satisfaction. He and Ben are in a deadly serious, but never discussed, competition for Leia’s affections at all times; she can’t help wondering if Poe hopes Ben might get a scolding for not marrying Rey first.

( _“That was what was most confusing about his turn to the dark. He had such a strong sense of right and wrong. Ben was properly ashamed of everything he shouldn’t have done, he’d sulk and pout and seethe at himself for days. And so proud when he’d gotten it right. He’d hide it, of course. But in the moments before he covered it up, he had the sweetest little smile.”_ )

“To be a fly on the wall for that conversation,” sighs Poe, almost wistful.

“I imagine it’ll go just fine,” Rey says with a laugh. She hopes it will, anyway. She hopes that Ben is smiling. She hopes that Leia is proud.

That hope must count for something, even as her heart pounds each time the girl within her breathes.

*

If she had any doubts that Ben was happy about the little someone they’ve given life to, they’re swept away by the intense waves of his passion when he takes her to bed. In the light of day, Ben was all sweetness, but tonight, Ben is _consumed_ by the dark, in all the ways that Rey normally loves. He is insatiable, nothing but hands and lips and teeth and tongue, desperate to prove how deeply he loves her.

“ _You are mine_ ,” Ben hisses, tugging at her hair, and _oh_ , she _is_ , her back arching as he nips at her earlobe, buries his face in the spot where her neck meets her shoulder and sucks. He covers her with rough kisses all down her body, his hands roaming over her hips and kneading at her thighs. When Ben reaches the soft, rounded spot below her navel, his lips linger over the place where _she_ is, just a little too long, and she feels the hint of his gentle smile against her skin. Rey’s lungs seize up, panic spiking through her veins.

Ben stops immediately. He gazes up at her, pupils blown, hair wild and mussed. “What’s wrong?”

Lying to him is utterly pointless, but Rey tries anyway. “Nothing.”

He closes his eyes and breathes slowly, calming himself down. When his eyes open again, they’re brighter, no longer pitch-black with lust. “What is it?”

“I don’t know, Ben. I’m sorry.” She squirms, trying to roll away, and he gets the hint, lifting himself off of her. Unfortunately, he settles in front of her instead of behind. Rey tries to roll onto her other side but he holds her still.

“You’re scared,” Ben says bluntly, and she groans and pushes him away. He does it all the time, confronts the truth about people and their feelings with all of the caution and care of a wild bantha. Except himself, of course, but he’s getting better about that.

( _“Han went to visit him on Yavin IV, when he was training with Luke. Ben told Han flat out that he was aware that he was only visiting because he felt like he should, and asked Han, very calmly, not to come back again if he didn’t want to. Luke heard Han say, ‘Don’t_ you _wanna see_ me _, kid?’ Ben didn’t say anything else, and they didn’t see each other again, until…”_ )

Rey sighs. “Not of you.”

“I know.”

His hand rests over her belly. Rey covers his hand with her own. Below their hands, she continues to breathe.

“I didn’t think I could love anyone else. Like this,” Ben says quietly. “And then there was you, and now there is you and her. I don’t know what to do.”

For some reason, the admission comforts Rey, if only a little. She almost thanks him, but instead whispers, “Me too.”

He presses his forehead to hers, and there is meaning in it, a love and understanding that words can’t express. The bond curls around them protectively as it did so many times before they were finally brought together, in the days when their visions of home and family felt so far away that it was impossible for Rey or Ben to map a path to them.

But the path is long since made. The hardest part is over, and yet Rey can’t bring herself to take another step. The breath of R’iia is far behind and somehow ahead of her at once, whispering to her of drunken traders and lonely desert rats. The sands of Jakku fill the spaces in her heart that should belong to her daughter. _A scavenger thinks only of herself,_ a woman calls, from somewhere in the desert. _When she comes, you will have no room for her, just as I had no room for you._

*

Once again, Rey is awake before Ben is, because she never really fell asleep. She’d laid in bed and stared at the ceiling all night, focusing herself by listening to Ben’s slow breathing and feeling her daughter’s steady hum in the Force. Growing accustomed to it. Making room for it.

When the sky becomes touched with pink and orange and sunlight just begins to peek through her window, Rey decides there’s nothing for her feeble attempts at sleep and rolls out of bed. She quietly pads out of their bedroom, into the kitchen, and the smell of Ben’s caf hits her nose, which she doesn’t process until she moves to start a pot of herbal tea before realizing that the pot of tea has already been started.

“Good morning.”

Rey practically jumps out of her skin. She turns to see Leia, looking both happier and older than Rey has ever seen, sitting at the kitchen table nursing her own cup. “I thought I’d start breakfast for you, but I wasn’t expecting you to be up so early.”

Leia is one of several people who has all of the codes to their home. It’s one of the many conditions to Ben’s freedom, so it’s not terribly unusual that she’s here, but for her to let herself in unannounced is very strange indeed. Not to mention her casual dress and the looser state of her hair. “Did you, ah, stay here last night?”

“Ben thought my presence might comfort you,” she explains, and Rey’s heart swells with love for them both until she remembers what they’d been doing before she’d stopped him. While he knew his Force-sensitive mother was under their roof. Stars, he’s got absolutely no self-control.

A flush blooms over Rey’s neck and face. “I didn’t feel you…I was, um, sorry, I…”

It’s as if Leia knows exactly what Rey is thinking when she waves a hand dismissively. “If you and Ben were up to anything, I didn’t notice. I learned quickly when Ben returned that it was generally in my best interest to shut the two of you out–“

_Oh, Maker._ From head to toe, Rey feels like her skin is on fire; it’s not helped by the way Leia chuckles over her tea. “Oh, please. I was young once.” Mischief flickers in her eyes before making way for joy, love. “But _she’s_ new. It’s no wonder you didn’t notice me, I imagine she’s got all of your attention, hm?”

Slowly, Rey nods, unable to speak around the lump in her throat.

“It was the same for me with Ben. He outshone everything else at first.” Leia leans in, words heavy with unspoken emotion. “She’s _strong,_ Rey. Like her mother.”

In her life, Rey has never felt weaker. Leia’s smile is so warm, so genuine, and suddenly everything is all too much. Before she can stop it, her bottom lip begins to quiver; she blinks over and over in a vain attempt to keep her tears at bay. As Rey trembles with barely suppressed fear, Leia rises from her chair, hobbling over to her and instinctively leading Rey to a chair of her own, rubbing Rey’s back as she sniffles.

"Leia, I can't, I’m not ready...I can't, please, _Mother_..."

Leia is merciful, holding her instead of correcting her. "I can't," Rey says again. "I can't...how can I..."

_You were a hero of the Rebellion, the great Princess of Alderaan, and it was not enough. You were everything I could have wanted in a mother and still you failed._

“You’re right to be afraid of her,” murmurs Leia. “It’s hell, loving Ben.”

Rey blinks up at Leia, shocked at her bluntness, but Leia just sighs. She pulls her own chair closer to Rey’s and sits, studies the knots and lines in the table, tracing her finger over a jagged, deep one that cuts and winds through the wood.

“Ben looked so old, when he first came back to us,” Leia says finally. “I hadn’t seen him in eight years. He shouldn’t have looked so old.” She rubs at her face. “I thought I was crazy. I knew what had to be done. That no matter what Ben Solo had done to make up for them, Kylo Ren would have to pay for his crimes, and that it would probably mean his head. And yet…when I went to meet with him, all I saw was my boy. Even when he tried to call me ‘General Organa’ as I came closer.”

It isn’t funny, but it is, so Leia laughs like the mother of an unruly teenager instead of the mother of a war criminal. Rey can understand, has come to accept these strange dichotomies regarding Ben. She used to confide in him like a bosom friend instead of the sworn enemy of the Jedi Killer.

“After everything, I still loved him. The man who killed my husband. It was horrifying. When they wouldn’t let me into the trial…”

This Rey remembers clear as day, because they hadn’t let Rey in, either. She’d just watched him go into the room, shackles about his wrists. Leia had fumed about the council’s perceived “conflicts of interest” until her voice went ragged from exhaustion. Until she’d been resigned to their shared reality. They’d sat together, nails digging into each other’s hands, waiting for what felt like an eternity.

And then Ben had emerged, not without escorts but his shackles nowhere to be seen, and Leia had actually shoved one of her son’s escorts out of the way to get to her son. Rey remembers his shock, still so wary of being touched, of receiving love. She remembers the way he’d opened his arms for his mother, so slowly, and how he looked at Rey almost for help, for guidance, for…

“He loves you so much.”

Yes, then and now, a truth he never once tried to hide once he knew its name. Rey knows this, of course, but still she flushes scarlet. “He loves you, too,” she replies weakly, not sure why she feels like she needs to say this.

Thankfully, Leia doesn’t comment on it. “Ben loves like no one I’ve ever known. I used to think he was like Han, then like his grandfather, but Ben loves only like Ben. So intense, all-encompassing. He would die a thousand times before leaving you. You’re different. You’re careful with your heart.”

_No, no, there is room for them, I’ve made sure, I’ve tried so hard…_ “I love him more than anything,” Rey replies defensively.

“That isn’t what I said. You’re strong enough to _leave_ Ben, if you had to. If that were what was best for him, you, your child.” Leia frowns, then, lost in a memory. Rey touches her hand, and Leia turns back toward her. “But it won’t be the same with her. No matter what happens between you and my son, you’ll never stop loving her, Rey. You can’t escape your love for her, can’t push it aside to save yourself or anyone else. There is no way to leave your child.”

Rey thinks of her own mother, nameless, a pile of bones buried under Jakku’s swirling sands. Angry tears well up in Rey’s eyes. “I think there is.”

But Leia grips her hand tighter, as if she’s desperate for Rey to understand something. “Not for you, Rey. _Not for you_. You could never.” Her smile is laced with pity. “You love like me.”

Gratitude, warm and heavy, settles in Rey’s chest, and she weeps, burying her head into Leia’s shoulder. Grandmother, mother, and daughter all held in one embrace, and Rey feels it, then, spaces in her body she didn’t even know she had welling up with love. She swears she feels her daughter respond in kind, the Force singing around them with hope for the first time since her daughter came into being.

It’s at this tender moment that Ben wanders into the room, still hazy and half-drunk from sleep.

“Caf?” Ben asks Leia blearily, and then his eyes land on Rey and her tears, and he’s fully awake. “What did you say to her?” he snaps at his mother, kneeling in front of Rey.

“Well, good morning to you too, Ben,” Leia replies good-naturedly.

Rey gives him a watery-eyed smile. “She was just…telling me about the agony of childbirth.”

Ben snorts in disbelief, but also blanches. “Not how I’d have preferred to start my morning, personally.”

“You’ll be starting your mornings much worse in no time at all,” Leia chides, already up and pouring caf for her son, tea for her daughter. She turns conspiratorially to Rey. “When he was first born, I didn’t sleep a wink at night. He was _always_ hungry, and he wasn’t nice about it, either. I felt like my tits had been used for sparring practice every time he fed.”

Rey laughs so hard she spills her tea all over him as well as herself.

“Honestly, Mother,” Ben stammers, his ears turning pink as he searches for a cloth. When he finds one, he mops Rey’s lap up before his own, and his hand brushes over her belly. He pauses, glancing up at Rey, affection and light surging through him and spilling over into her. Rey finds there’s plenty of space for it, even as their daughter’s light burns from within.

A scavenger, after all, will find room for everything she is given. A scavenger will fight until her last breath for what is hers.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think Rey would be thrilled about a pregnancy at first, considering her relationship with her parents, but I think she'd get there. One day at a time. :)
> 
> The song referenced in the title and quoted at the beginning of the fic is an A+ way to drown in and die from Leia & Ben feelings, in case you're into that. I know I am.


End file.
